


silence like a cancer grows

by lucie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, F/M, Gen, Post-Episode: s04e13 Praimfaya, Post-Season/Series 04, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reunions, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2018-12-19 03:19:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11888853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucie/pseuds/lucie
Summary: The Ark seven make it to the ground, the bunker gets freed, and Clarke Griffin is still on her own.





	1. silence like a cancer grows

# silence like a cancer grows

Fools, said I, you do not know  
Silence like a cancer grows  
Hear my words that I might teach you  
Take my arms that I might reach you  
But my words, like silent raindrops fell  
And echoed in the wells of silence  
-The Sound of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel-

In all her imaginings of their possible reunion, she’d never expected to feel so alone. It was like that first year all over again, after Praimfaya, trapped in the lab without a voice but her own. Without anyone or anything. Just her. She sometimes wondered how much of herself she’d lost during that period. Each day, she had struggled to find a reason not to let herself die, but it got harder and harder as the months passed. Five years had seemed an impossible gap to breach. 

It’d been six years, and she’d survived. The seven on the Ark came back down, the bunker was freed from the rubble of Polis, and they were all together, those who were left. Even the alliance with the miners seemed like it might hold. 

Clarke stood at the edge of the tree line, hidden in the shadows as she watched her people—those who had once been her people—pass around cups of moonshine, brewed not by Monty and Jasper, but by a handful of people in the bunker. Someone she didn’t know was making a toast, and Octavia, her mother, Kane, Miller—they were laughing. Bellamy, Raven, Monty, Harper, Murphy, Emori, Echo—they hung together, interspersed with the larger group if not quite re-integrated. Octavia had yet to leave her brother’s side, though, and it was only a matter of time. Miller stuck by Monty and Harper, an arm slung around each, and even Echo—distant, cold, once-exiled Echo—fit next to Bellamy and Octavia as if she’d always been there.

Neither group needed her anymore. Six years was a long time, and she’d felt every day of it keenly. She’d spent the years waiting, dreaming of the day they could all be together again, and could move forward as a group into a different, better future. Logically, she’d known things would be different. People would change, but—somehow it seemed impossible they wouldn’t fit back together again in some familiar way. But the delinquents only known each other a year. Skaikru had been united for only a few months, before Praimfaya, and she’d spent so long apart from them even then. 

During her isolation, the past had grown simple, the ties between them stronger than they’d really been. Reality felt like a knife, buried deep in her chest, so far in it’d be suicide to remove.

Bellamy and the others had come down a few weeks after the miners, and they’d been shocked to see her. Alive and well, trailed by a young girl. They’d been ecstatic she’d survived, of course, but too shocked to move. They hadn’t known what to do with her, nor she them, feeling the distance between them even greater than when they’d been in space. 

Weeks of negotiations, digging, more negotiations and a stand off with the miners hadn’t closed that gap. She’d stood amongst them and known what it was to be the outsider. They knew each other, read each other with just a look, spoke in silent glances, even Echo and Emori, and she stood on the edge of it all, unable to breach the wall between them.

She’d forgotten that she and Raven had never been friends. Too much pain between them, too much resentment. Reminders of Finn neither of them needed. And Monty, who’d been so furious with her for the lists, Harper with whom she’d never been close, Murphy and Emori, who had every right to hate her. 

And Bellamy. Whatever bond she’d had with Bellamy, whatever feelings they’d had for each other—and even now, she wasn’t sure if he’d felt the same—they’d spent so much time at each other’s throats. Still, the bond had been strong, durable in the face of her leaving, her threatening him with a gun, and all the trust they’d lost between them. She’d known him at a glance, as the others did now, known his thoughts and known his loyalty. That he would always be there when she needed him. He’d shared her burden, and it had felt, for a time, like no one in the world could understand each other the way they did.

All that had changed. He and Raven worked as a team, seamless and affectionate. With Echo, there were shared glances, casual touches, that spoke of history and comfort. Even Murphy received Bellamy’s goofy grin, proud pats on the back, approving gaze. Any bond she and Bellamy had had was long outpaced by six years of trials she would never know. It was time they could never get back. When he looked at her now, like she was a stranger, trying to figure her out, all she saw were lost chances. An almost, a could have been. A too late.

As the shock of her survival had worn off, they’d all given her hugs, even the grounders and Murphy. Though she knew affection and love with Madi, this was different. She’d stood there, awkward, trying to return hugs she no longer knew how to give. Their touch was strange, and foreign, and she’d avoided it since. Every contact hurt for the closeness that was no longer there. She craved it, and feared it, in equal measure.

After a month, they’d freed the people in the bunker. Her mother had cried, hugged her, gazed at her proudly as she watched Clarke’s interactions with Madi. But there was a ring on her finger that hadn’t been there before, secret smiles with Kane that were as ingrained as Clarke remembered the glances being between her parents long ago. And somehow, her mother had developed a close relationship with Octavia, of all people. She cast an affectionate, motherly gaze as she witnessed the siblings reunited, and managed an ease with Octavia and Raven—even after all this time—that Clarke had never experienced. Mother and daughter always been difficult with each other, even before her dad was floated. They would always love each other, but—

Well, there were too many buts.

Clarke had seen Madi to sleep in the rover, parked at the edge of the clearing where they’d gathered, then gone to join the others in celebration. Only she hadn’t made it that far, stopping to observe. Knowing in her heart, it wouldn’t matter if she stayed away. They’d never notice. Six years, and they’d all moved on. Even those who’d hoped she was alive, like her mother, had forged ahead with a new life, new relationships, new dreams. 

It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It wasn’t malicious, as if they meant to cut her out. But it had happened anyway. An inevitability she should’ve been prepared for. 

She’d been alone too long, waiting. Stagnant. Even as she’d thought she’d changed so much, it’d been without the influence or knowledge of anyone else. Madi had only known her as a mother, as the Clarke she was alone, surviving. The girl had been her savior, a reason to keep going, but it didn’t assuage Clarke’s need for adult companionship, an equal with whom to speak and share responsibility. 

Wells had had a puzzle back on the Ark that had been battered over the generations. When they were little, a single piece had broken off one of its legs, been bent in half and—strangely enough—chewed on (she’d never asked, and Wells had never offered). It never laid flat, never quite fit, and the image was never what it had once been, no matter how many times they tried to make it work.

She was the broken puzzle piece. She didn’t belong with these people anymore. The image, the shape of them, had changed.

For so many years she'd felt tied to her people, felt the burden of their survival on her shoulders. It should be a relief, then, to be free of it. And yet the weight remained, replaced by grief and the ache of loneliness. How could she be so isolated in the presence of more people than she’d seen in six years?

Maybe it was time for her to start over, with people whose faces didn't hurt in their unfamiliarity. In the month before the Ark seven came down, she'd built a rapport with the miners. A long way from trust, but it was a start. She'd lived among strangers before. She could work to forge trust between the two groups, the survivors and the miners, as someone who belonged in neither. She could be useful.

With the miners, she could feel like the woman she was, instead of the girl she'd been. 

But she'd have to consult Madi. The young girl had been so excited to meet the people from her stories. Or other people in general. Especially the other grounders, who reminded her of a childhood she barely remembered. Clarke had found Madi at seven years old, and now, at twelve, she sought answers to a heritage she’d never known. No matter how much she loved Clarke, part of her would always be grounder, and Clarke wouldn’t have it any other way. Her daughter deserved to know her people. She deserved a choice. 

Clarke loved her, more than she loved anything else on this planet. If Madi wanted to stay—Clarke would stay too. She’d keep to the fringes, to the people she’d not known before, and do what she could. It would be agony, to see everyone she loved from across a divide she didn’t know how to bridge, to witness their changes more deeply, and see the family the Ark seven had made without her. But she’d do it. For Madi.

That hurt the most. She’d expected to be apart from the bunker, and she’d always stood somewhat removed from the majority of the Skaikru. She’d certainly alienated the grounders with her attempt to seal them outside. That exclusion she expected. But Bellamy, Raven, Monty, Harper—they’d felt like hers. People who’d been there from the beginning, with whom she’d weathered the storms of that first year on the ground. The relief of seeing them alive, in person, had been breathtaking.

But part of her resented their newfound intimacy. New for her, years in the making for them. She hated herself for it, because they were alive, and that’d been all she wanted for so long. Why couldn’t she just be happy they’d survived? There was the possibility of a fresh start, and maybe she could find a new place, become someone who belonged again. Six years had passed, but hopefully there were many more to come.

Could she stand the wait? And the pain in the meantime. After six years, she was so tired of waiting. This was supposed to be a happy reunion, filled with the relief of having succeeded in saving who they could, and lasting through the years until they could be reunited. Her people, together again. Instead, she was alone as she’d been for so long. On the outside looking in.

She wanted to be okay with that, but she wasn’t. 

It wasn’t their fault. She wasn’t sure she even knew how to be part of a group anymore. How to confide in someone, be near more than just Madi. How to touch someone other than her daughter, and be touched in return. Her world had narrowed so far, she didn’t know how to expand it again. 

Would it hurt more to leave now, or stay and feel the pain of not belonging, trying to bridge the gap and failing? 

“Mama?” she heard, and turned to find Madi hugging the shadows at Clarke’s side. 

“Can’t sleep?” she asked, simply for something to say. She’d always thought that question was stupid—the answer was obvious.

Madi shook her head. “Too much noise.” Her eyes went wide, as if realizing what she said, that it might be offensive or ungrateful, then hurried on, “I don’t mean they’re loud or anything. Just—I can hear them talking. It’s weird.”

“I know,” Clarke told her. “But you’ll get used to it. It’s not just us anymore, and that’s a good thing.”

The girl hummed in agreement, then reached over and took her hand. “Why are you all the way out here?” she asked.

Clarke hesitated, realizing for the first time there were people she could ask for advice on dealing with a pre-teen. Only, there was no one she felt comfortable approaching. No one she felt at ease conversing with for long periods of time. Not even Bellamy. Not her own mother. It would feel like imposing on people she didn’t know anymore. Besides, they were all busy sharing stories, reacquainting themselves with the ground and with each other. She’d tried that earlier and been forced to realize the extent of her isolation. No one, not the Ark seven or the ones from the bunker, knew how to interact with her. They gazed at her, half-smiles and raised brows, saying how good it was to see her alive, until the silence fell. Awkward silence, or maybe a question about how she’d survived, and they’d move on as soon as someone else they knew appeared. 

There was no one but Madi to rely on for support. And she was the mother, the one Madi was supposed to lean on, not the other way around. She refused to hide behind her daughter, and she stood out, alone in the crowd.

She went with her gut with Madi, as she’d been doing from the start. It seemed to have worked so far. “I’m thinking about going to live with the miners,” she said, knowing the shock it would cause and barreling on with her reasoning. “We need someone to get to know them, build trust between our peoples, and we know this planet better than anyone. We can show them how to survive here.”

Clarke glanced at Madi when she said nothing, but the girl just looked back, waiting, her eyes slightly narrowed. 

She sighed. “I don’t belong here anymore,” she said, quiet. Like she was afraid someone might overhear, even when that was impossible with the laughter and the chatter from by the fire. “I know the grounders are your people, and if you want to stay—“

“I go where you go,” Madi said, tugging on her hand until Clarke was forced to meet her gaze. “You’re my people.”

“You’re my people too,” Clarke told her, and dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You come first.”

Madi nodded, and looked back out at the group around the fire, celebrating. “Should we go now?” she asked. She glanced up at Clarke, hazel eyes wide and lit by the distant fire. “While they’re busy? And it’s night so they won’t see us.”

Leaving had been such an abstract idea, she hadn’t thought of the specifics. The when or how. She hadn’t imagined it would be now, without a goodbye. 

But would they let her go, if she told them? She’d said so many goodbyes already. And Madi was right—leaving in the night, while they drank and reveled in being together would be easiest. 

Maybe it was cruel. They cared about her still, and they’d worry when they saw her gone. She didn’t want to cause more pain than she already had, but how much longer could she stand this? She was tired of being alone. Tired of being a memory, belonging to the past. 

They’d visit. Once she was settled, she’d come back and let them know where she’d gone. From time to time, she and Madi could visit. Better to leave now, when her presence was still an anomaly, than to tear herself away once they’d gotten used to having her around.

Still. "We don't have to decide right now," she told Madi. "We've got a few days. Let's go get some sleep. There’s a lot of work to be done tomorrow.”

“They’re going to regret the late night!” Madi said, laughing, and there was no sound Clarke would rather hear. She laughed with her, and reached out to ruffle her hair. The young girl tolerated it, but huffed to let Clarke know she was too old for that kind of thing. It lightened her heart, distracted her from the dark thoughts of before. 

Leading her daughter over to the rover, they both settled in on the make-shift pallet they’d been using for years. It was comfortable, warm, protected from the elements, and it gave them the mobility they’d needed to live in the years when living things were few and far between. The rover and the girl in her arms had become her little world, and tucked inside, Madi snuggled against her side, it felt like home. As homes went, it wasn’t a bad one. Lonely, but familiar. It was enough. She would make it be enough.

Laying there, staring at the roof, she tried imagining what it must be like for Madi, who’d known only her for five years. The first five years of her life had been normal, in her village with family, but those memories were hazy, Clarke knew, and grew more distant every year. At five years old, she’d been left orphaned and alone by Praimfaya. And still she’d lived, for a year, on her own. She had a strength Clarke had never seen before, in anyone. It twisted her gut, the idea of Madi, young and afraid, wandering the irradiated wasteland before Clarke found her. She’d been starving, and weak, but still stubborn. A little wild thing, scratching and growling whenever Clarke got too close.

She wouldn’t trade what she had with Madi for anything in the world. Not even a return to the way things were with the others. 

That didn’t make it easier to bear.

The idea of taking off called to her, but actually picking up her feet to move, packing the rover and driving off—she couldn't do it. Not yet. Maybe she never would. She'd left once before and it'd been a disaster. A voice in her head warned not to make the same mistake, but most of her refused to see how the circumstances could be the same. 

For good or ill, everything was different.

She'd sleep on it. See what the morning brought, under a new light. 

\---

The next day passed in a blur. There was so much to be done in moving out some twelve hundred people onto the ground, setting up a campsite and planning for a future settlement. Deciding if the unified clans would stay together or disperse once more. 

The Ark seven operated with a fluidity she envied. Bellamy barked orders to his own people and anyone close enough to hear, while Raven directed. She and Monty were working on dismantling whatever useful parts of the bunker they could. Emori kept an inventory list going, and Murphy, Harper, and Echo did the heavy lifting. They fell into their roles as soon as they woke, everyone knowing their place, their strengths, and how to play them together. 

Octavia had her own operation going, ordering people to set up tents, parsing out space, and overseeing the unloading of any remaining supplies down below. She’d arranged and posted a guard around the perimeter, wary of what miners might try to steal in the chaos. She was a good leader, respected and trusted, and she’d changed from the angry young woman she’d been.

So Clarke threw herself into the grunt work, lifting and sorting with a sea of strange grounder faces. No one looked directly at her. To many, she would always be the _Wanheda_. And to others, she was the Skaikru leader who betrayed the grounders to steal the bunker. She expected no less.

Madi had spent the morning chasing after some of the other kids in the camp. After a short lunch break with Clarke, she’d gone with Abby to watch as the older woman administered care to those who needed it in a makeshift clinic. Mostly the wounds were sprains, scraps and bruises from the work. Abby hadn't asked Clarke to help, and she hadn't volunteered. Physical labor was better for her now. She'd be worn out, and focused on her task. A mindlessness she embraced. 

She spent the day in the middle of the chaos, surrounded by people, both those she knew and those she didn't. She wasn't ignored, just overlooked—people greeted her, sometimes even with a smile. But it was accompanied by a vacant look as they went on with their business that never included her. She was forgotten about as routines, familiar roles took shape. Kane, Octavia, Indra, and Bellamy had stood around early in the day, delegating, and she’d put herself in their vicinity, waiting for a place for her to jump in. Waiting for someone to remember she was there. It didn’t feel right to impose herself in their meeting. They were the leaders now, and she wasn’t one of them. Only Bellamy had acknowledged her presence with a small wave and smile, before he went back to what he’d been working on.

At dinner, she sat by Madi and half-listened as the girl recounted her day. She watched the Ark crew from across the open space within which tables, chairs, logs, and blankets had been set up to serve as common area. Tents were going up all around them. Bellamy and the others had taken a table for themselves, jostling for space and grinning at each other all the while. There was a lightness to them she'd never seen. 

She could go over there with Madi, and they’d be welcomed, but it would change their teasing, relaxed atmosphere. She was a reminder of the past. A remnant of a brutal, violent time when their survival required extraordinary measures, and someone willing to make the choices necessary. 

They’d moved on. It was time for her to do the same.

Once she figured out how.

“They don’t like me,” Madi said, finally breaking through Clarke’s musing with words, and a tone of voice, that pained her to hear. 

“What?” she asked. “Who?” Who didn’t like her, and how was that possible? (She _knew_ it was unreasonable to expect everyone to like her daughter, but—they should.) It was something she’d never dealt with before, the dejection on Madi’s face that broke her heart. How the girl would be accepted by others had never even been a worry.

“The other kids. They said we were freaks,” Madi grew quieter with each word. “No humans could survive outside the bunker. Only freaks.”

She wasn’t surprised. Had assumed she’d be treated with caution, be seen as other. She always had been to a certain extent. The princess of the Ark, the _Wanheda_ , the leader of Skaikru, responsible for deciding who lived and who died. The people who mattered cared for her in spite of all that, and it was supposed to be enough. But Madi—

She’d never considered herself a naive person, and yet she’d constantly underestimated people. Idealized a future when Praimfaya was over, and there’d be peace. Her friends and family returned. Madi, given a chance to experience friendship, know someone her own age. They were daydreams, and she'd forgotten. Started to believe in them when she should've been preparing.

“That’s why you went to the clinic today?” Clarke asked, piecing it together. Imagining how it had gone, Madi trying to make friends without any experience in doing so, and being rejected. Madi had hoped, too, that people would be as excited to see her as she was to see them. It was wrong that the world didn’t work that way, but Clarke should've known better.

She drew her daughter close, wrapping an arm around her and resting her chin on the girl’s head. More and more often, Madi would resist, too old for cuddles, but this time she sank into Clarke’s side, wrapping her own arm around Clarke’s waist and turning her head into her mother’s chest. 

“We’re not freaks, my little _natblida_ ,” Clarke said, speaking the words into Madi’s hair. “We’re survivors. There’s no shame in that.”

“I know,” the girl said. She shrugged as if to brush off the hurt of their words, though Clarke knew better than to think it would work. “They don’t understand. But I wanted—” She didn’t finish, but she didn’t have to. Clarke could fill in the blank herself. 

Tears glistened on the bottom edge of Madi’s lashes, and Clarke wanted to punish the children responsible. It wasn’t her place, though. And it wouldn’t solve anything.

The hole in her chest ached, and she made up her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for any mistakes, I'm only now getting back into writing and this is unbeta'd. Also, sorry. I know it's depressing, but I can't get this story out of my head. This idea of Clarke being an outsider, of not being part of the group anymore, and having spent so long alone. That was the part of the finale that killed me. I'm open to writing more of this, but I wanted to see how this is received.
> 
> I've only recently come to the fandom, but I pretty much stopped watching after season 2. I was unhappy with the direction of the show, and the characterization changes. But I've always been a big Bellarke shipper, and hoped for a happy ending I could jump back into. Then the finale, and the realist in me-as much as I enjoy the reunion fics—has given up on canon Bellarke. 
> 
> Six years is a long time. Living in a small space with only six other people, going through the challenges of trying to survive on the Ark, thinking Clarke is dead (it's too much of a dramatic storyline for them to not know she's alive. It makes it less suspenseful if they hear her messages so I can't see why they'd go that route)—I don't see how Bellamy won't have mourned her and moved on. And having only known her for less than a year, I don't see a reasonable or realistic way for them to get together, and still have their bond, when he's bound to have formed similar—stronger—bonds with the others. I want so badly for the sweet, hug-filled reunions to come true, but I just don't see how they could realistically bridge that gap of time and change. They're going to be strangers, with entirely different lives.
> 
> So, yeah. Thus was born my story, based on my despair for the upcoming season. This is probably way more pessimistic than what it will actually be, but I'm preparing for the worst. I'm open to continuing, and trying to work out a way to reunite Bellamy and Clarke for real, but that's up to you. I've already got some of a Bellamy reaction chapter written (which would give a lot more insight given that Clarke is obviously not a neutral narrator, and not necessarily seeing things the way they really are), but I'm not sure where to go from there. I can't promise anything, and if someone is interested in continuing, you're welcome to. I am dying for someone to write a realistic way to overcome the six years, without breaking my heart with Bell/Echo/Raven/etc.
> 
> Let me know what you think in comments. And if you're a writer, keep going with the happy reunion stories! They're pretty much my escape right now.


	2. take my arms that I might reach you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and the others find out they're missing something.

It took them far too long to notice she was gone. Abby started asking around first, seeking her daughter, almost a week after the opening of the bunker. That was the last time anyone could remember seeing her.

He longed to rage at Abby, demand to know how she could’ve gone so long without seeing her child and not even being aware. After six years apart, how could she bear to even let Clarke out of her sight? Six years on her own—if there was anyone who deserved a bit of motherly affection right now, it was Clarke.

But he bit his tongue, and dug fingernails into his palm. He was just as guilty.

“Why would she have left?” Kane asked, running a hand through his hair. “Where would she even go?”

They’d gathered in Octavia’s tent, where she sat in a chair resembling a throne, Indra at her side. Bellamy still wasn’t used to that, but she seemed to have grown into the role. Abby, Kane, and Raven stood around him, trying to puzzle out what had happened to Clarke. How she could have disappeared without anyone noticing.

“She watched you,” Indra said, scoffing. Octavia was still the only one she seemed to respect or care about. “Stood at the edges and observed. Stood in the middle and observed. The _Wanheda_ has never been a fool. She saw there was no place for her, and left.”

“No place for her?” Abby demanded, furious. She’d aged over the past six years, more gray in her hair and lines on her face. “Of course there’s a place for her! We’re her family!”

“Not anymore,” Indra told them. Somehow, unlike the rest of them, the years hadn’t changed her a bit. “It took you five days to notice she was gone.”

Abby opened her mouth, geared up for a fight—he’d seen the same look often enough on Clarke, once upon a time—when Octavia slammed her fist down on the arm of her chair, silencing them both. “Enough. We don’t have the time or resources for this. Clarke left on her own—the rover and the girl are gone too. There were no signs of struggle. If she doesn’t want to be here, there’s nothing we can do about that, and there are a lot more issues we need to be discussing instead of Clarke Griffin.”

“She’s one of us. A part of our people, and there aren’t many of those left,” Abby said. “She’s my _daughter_. If this were Bellamy—“

Octavia cut her off, expression hard, closed off. “It isn’t Bellamy. He’s never run off into the woods when the mood struck him, and left everyone behind. She may be your people, but she isn’t mine. My people are out there,” she pointed outside the tent, “working to rebuild society.”

“That isn’t fair, Octavia,” Kane said, arms crossed. “We don’t know what Clarke’s been through. Six years on her own, then suddenly constantly surrounded by hundreds? That would be difficult for anyone.”

Bellamy sank down into the spare chair at Octavia’s desk, dragged out of the bunker just that afternoon. He braced his arms on his knees, and rested his forehead on the joined knuckles of his hands. “We should have realized sooner,” he said, voice quiet and rough.

“Where do you think she went? Back on her own with Madi? Just off in the woods, the two of them? How far can they really go with such a limited area of regrowth?” Raven asked. She leaned up against his side, a silent comfort. And an excuse to rest her leg without seeming like it. He bore her weight and closed his eyes. 

“They are not like us,” Indra said. “They can survive where we can’t.”

Raven raised a brow. “They’re able to metabolize radiation at a faster rate than any of us. They’re not invincible.”

“We have bigger problems to worry about,” Octavia said. “There aren’t enough resources for everyone, if we include the miners, in the land currently available. Not without over hunting. We can’t afford a war with them right now, and they’ve got two months on us in terms of setting up a permanent settlement. Walls, defenses, shelter—we’ve got a tentative guard rotation, and a handful of tents. Clarke can wait. If she’s made it this long, she can make it another few months without you riding to her rescue.” The last she sent his way, glaring as if this was all his fault. Bellamy had not missed that particular look on his sister.

“I’m not abandoning my daughter,” Abby said. She raised her chin, met the gaze of each of them, then walked out. Another thing he hadn’t missed—Abby Griffin and her condescension. 

Rubbing a hand down his face, Kane sighed. “Octavia’s right,” he said, too quietly for anyone outside the tent to hear. “Clarke can wait. Food and shelter can’t.”

Bellamy tried to listen to the ensuing discussion but none of it got through. All he could see was Clarke’s face, when she’d told him to hurry before Praimfaya. The fear and—the love on her face as she’d looked to him one last time. He hadn’t let himself believe it at the time, but with age and distance he’d finally placed the expression. She’d loved him, in some capacity or other, and he’d left her behind. 

She’d have seen the rocket leave, known it meant her death. Known it meant they’d abandoned her— _he’d_ abandoned her. An imagination he didn’t want supplied the betrayal on her face, the terror of facing the death wave alone. The pain as the radiation hit. Even with nightblood, she’d have been sick for a time. In agony, without anyone around. 

He shot to his feet, disrupting Raven and the discussion he wasn’t paying attention to. Before anyone could speak, he stalked out of the tent, the fabric smacking his arm as he shoved his way through. 

It was unbearable to think about Clarke. Worse to not have her here, where he could reassure himself that he hadn’t dreamed her up at all. 

He'd forgotten to look for her. Forgotten she was alive to be seen. For six years, he'd grieved and mourned and accepted she was gone. Those first few years, he sought her among the others, expecting to see her out of the corner of his eye, flashes of blonde hair in his weakest moments that always disappointed when he turned and the illusion was gone. Over time, those ghosts had faded. 

He’d gotten used to the absence of her. 

With so much to be done, and being reunited with Octavia, discovering the woman she’d grown into—he'd forgotten. The shame of it hit him like a blow to the gut, which he’d have preferred. Better than the knowledge he’d not seen her for five days and hadn’t thought anything of it. 

A month of knowing she was alive seemed like nothing in comparison to the years without her, and yet. It meant everything. He’d never been able to face the guilt of leaving her behind. It’d joined the rest of his regrets that weighed heavy in his chest, the deaths of his mother, Gina, Lincoln. Even the people in the Mountain. He tucked away his guilt and carried it with him, never ready to face it head-on.

But she was alive, against all odds. He hadn’t killed her. One less death on his conscience, and it was the most important one of all. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be used to that, be over the joy of it.

He’d never allowed himself the dream that she’d found a way to survive. A more hopeful man might have imagined a return to Earth where she was waiting, but he hadn’t. It would’ve only hurt to pretend their reality was kind enough to allow him that, and he’d needed to be the head—like she’d told him—in order to keep them alive. Practical, not sentimental. He thought he’d managed that pretty well. 

Seeing her again had gutted him. She’d stood at the edge of the clearing where they’d landed, rifle slung over her shoulder and hair shorter than he’d ever seen it, with a look on her face like all her prayers had come true. He thought maybe they had. He couldn’t imagine what she must have been through, to survive and raise a child alone on a broken, irradiated planet. 

It was hard to remember she was alive. He'd spent so long beating it into his head that she was never coming back, never going to be waiting for them to return. That he'd never see her again. Even waking up across the fire from her for a month, witnessing the calm negotiations she managed with the miners, the way she cared for and protected Madi—most days it seemed like a dream. A fantasy. 

Seeing her again after their first steps in the ground, he'd been filled with a relief he'd never known. A sudden hope that maybe things would turn out alright despite everything they'd been through. Every challenge they'd faced had led them here, to this moment when they were alive, together. For once the Earth had given back, not taken.

He’d hugged her once they’d gotten themselves moving, feeling the tension in his body, in hers, as they embraced. It used to feel natural holding her in his arms. She would sink into him, and he'd curl around her, and for those few moments he'd felt like he truly had to power to keep her safe. The rare occasions it had occurred were burned into his memory, cherished souvenirs of a girl he’d thought gone forever. But his disbelief made his limbs stiff, almost unresponsive. Part of him believed touching her would shatter the illusion, and he’d open his eyes to an empty field, void of Clarke. Then she’d been real, solid in his arms. Solid, but far away.

He'd expected her to be happy. To welcome them with a bright smile, and open arms. Instead she’d remained distant, awkward around them like she could never quite relax. She ate with them, slept beside them, taught them about the new world they’d come to, but rarely spoke unless spoken to. She watched them, intent and focused. 

She only ever smiled at Madi. The girl was a clever, serious child, but obviously happy. Secure in the knowledge that she was loved. She slept curled by Clarke every night. 

Clarke was a mother now, and a good one. He remembered thinking back at the dropship what a strict, no-nonsense parent she’d make. Like Abby, loving but struggling to show it. Like so many other assumptions he’d made about her, she’d proven him wrong, giving out affection and care like it was second nature. Being firm with Madi, but also letting the girl grow, explore, learn to be independent. She didn’t stifle the child even when she was visibly holding herself back from being overprotective. 

He’d gotten to know Madi in between dealing with the miners and making trips to Polis to examine the rubble. She’d told him stories of life on the ground, and he’d told her tales of their adventures in space (edited for age appropriateness, of course). He taught her about the ancient emperors and gods, tried to remember all the history he’d once memorized to bring to Octavia. 

It’d felt like a start. Madi was easy; Clarke he didn’t know what to do with. How to regain the ease and friendship between them. He hadn’t realized how much he missed it, having grown to accept its loss over the years. With her alive in front of him, he felt the lack of connection between them like an open wound. He’d told himself there was time. After they freed the bunker, got everyone somewhat settled, they could learn each other again. 

Only now she’d left.

For all the time she’d spent observing them, he’d returned the gesture, studying the woman she’d become. Soaking her in. She was so familiar, a ghost come to life, and so many pieces of her looked the same, at least on the outside. Her hair was shorter, but still the bright blonde that shone in the sunlight; her skin was lightly tanned but still fair, a healthy red in her cheeks. Those eyes of hers were the same too: a color blue he never thought he’d see again, like a sunny sky in their early days on Earth. There’d been no color like that on the Ark. He’d forgotten the richness of them. The depth of color that could exist in the world.

Many of her mannerisms were the same, but sometimes, she’d lose herself in thought and gaze off into the distance, oblivious to the people around her. There was a newfound calm about her, too. Serene, but—isolated. And how could she not be? 

For all the times he’d thought it was hell, trapped in the Ark with only six others for years seemingly without end, he’d never been alone. He’d had the others to turn to, to lean on, to touch and to see and to hear. At times he’d hated them in turn, but he loved them too. They were family. Voices of the living, to drown out those of the dead.

She’d had no one. He didn’t even know how long Madi had been with her, but it couldn’t have been the whole time. How many years did she spend without another soul? How had she not gone insane?

Even together with Madi, being the only two people in the world—it was unthinkable. And yet he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

He found the note when he got back to his tent, tense and angry. Frustrated with himself, for not paying attention, with Clarke, who preferred to run rather than face the challenges ahead. With the world, for sucking so fucking much.

A worn paper was folded in the pocket of his jacket that he'd slung across the bottom of his sleeping blanket at the start of the week. With the sun out, and the seasons changing, he hadn't needed it. When he’d picked the jacket up to throw it across the space—the only thing he had to throw and he’d needed to throw _something_ —the note slipped out. All his anger fled with the flutter of the paper as if fell to the ground.

_Bellamy,_

_I’m sorry. I left you again. I promised myself I never would, but we’re not those people anymore, are we?_

_I can’t stay. You, Octavia, and the others have things well in hand. Madi and I—we don’t belong there. I spent so long waiting, I think I forgot how much time had actually passed. That time would pass for you as well._

_I’m not sure I know how to be a part of something anymore. I think I lost myself in the crowd._

_I want so desperately for Madi to grow up differently, to fit in and play with children her own age. Have a community to rely on, not just me. To learn from you, and Raven, and my mom, and everyone else. But everyone there knows she’s a nightblood. She survived Praimfaya. She’s different from them, and they know it. Even the children. And children can be cruel._

_I wanted to tell you good-bye, but I didn’t know how. There are so many things we never talked about—I guess now it doesn’t matter. It’s easy to idealize the past when it’s not in your face everyday. When your present is worse than the past had ever been. I’d forgotten, or brushed aside, the things that I’d done before Praimfaya. I came to terms with a lot of what I’ve done. There wasn’t a lot to do with my time for awhile. I had to accept the past as much as I could in order to live with myself._

_There are things I regret, and things I don’t, but I should never have pointed a gun at you. Allowed you to be locked up and hurt. I know it was six years ago, but we never really had time to talk about it. It seemed, for those few days, like you had forgiven me, but things were so chaotic, so dire. I don’t remember if I ever apologized, but I am sorry. You were my best friend. I trusted you, and I trusted your judgment. I should never have I took for granted that you would always be there, even when I made stupid mistakes. Even if I left your sister to die._

_I radioed every day. 2,221 days. I never got any response, and I know now you never got them. There were so many things I’d wanted to say to you, and had never gotten the chance. So I told you by radio. After awhile, I knew no one could hear. I hoped but . . . I kept doing it anyway, as a way to remember who I was. To remind myself that you would come back, that my present was only temporary. To try and keep you alive in my head, when I didn’t know if any of you had actually made it. For all I knew, Madi and I were the last two humans anywhere._

_I can’t remember all the things I told you—the you I’d imagined could hear my messages over the radio no matter how improbable I knew it was—and even if I did, I don’t have time to write it down. I hope, one day, if you can forgive me for all that I’ve done, for leaving again, I might be able to tell you face to face._

_Once I figure things out, we’ll come back. Visit. Make sure things are going okay, that no more catastrophes or wars are headed your way. I might not be one of you anymore, but I still care about all of you, and I want to see our people flourish._

_Be happy, and take care of them. Take care of yourself. We’ve all earned it._

_Clarke_

He held his breath through the reading of it, and struggled to get started again as he finished. Each breath he drew in was jagged, catching on the edge of his grief and barely making it to his lungs. He shut his eyes against the burn of tears. 

Tone was impossible with a letter, so how could she sound lost? But she did. Like she truly believed there was no place for her here anymore, like she could just disappear and they wouldn’t notice.

They hadn’t. Not for five days.

He’d hated himself a lot in his life, especially in that year on the ground. It’d been awhile, though. He, like Clarke, had learned to live with his deeds. But his decision to leave Clarke behind had been the hardest choice he’d ever made. The only choice (oxymoron). It’d haunted him everyday for years, the what-ifs, the could-have-beens. 

Ultimately, he may not have killed her, but he’d left her there. When he shut the rocket’s door, he’d doomed her to this. To six years isolated from the rest of humanity. To a reunion where she was an outcast. 

The thought of her alone, with only her demons for company—he’d have lost it in her shoes. Their demons were too similar. 

He could picture her with the radio, day after day, for six years, trying to talk to someone who couldn’t hear and never responded. Living with that kind of solitude was something he couldn’t imagine. Then be thrust back into a population and expected to cope? For all the time he’d spent pondering what was going on in her head, he hadn’t wondered how she was adjusting, What that would be like.

Even he had refused to share a tent with anyone, needing space after days of constant activity now that the bunker was unsealed. The Ark had been big enough for some measure of privacy, but small enough that being able to escape those same people he’d seen everyday for six years was a luxury. His own space, a place to be by himself, was a comfort. But he was never too alone; the sounds of the outside camp were steady, reassuring. His solitude was a choice. Hers had been a prison.

And Madi. He could read between the lines. Someone had been cruel to her—about being a nightblood, or maybe being the daughter of _Wanheda_. For things she had no control over, and that shouldn’t matter anyway, after all they’d been through. 

None of that shit mattered anymore.

All he could feel was his heart, breaking.

————

He stormed into his sister’s tent the next morning. She, Indra, and Kane were standing around her desk, where they'd laid out a map of what had once been the surrounding territory. It was a jolt to see them meeting without him, without any of the remaining delinquents (there was Octavia, but she was so different from the girl who’d come down, changed perhaps more than any of them, that it was hard to think of her as such). It made sense, for all that it struck him harder than he’d anticipated. They were all still adjusting to being back together. Meshing who they’d been with who they’d become. Still, it felt like the early days when the Ark came down, being pushed aside by the adults 

He shook of his irritation, and barreled forward with his reason for barging in. They could study the map all they wanted. None of them had set foot outside the ruins of Polis since leaving the bunker. They didn't know that the world had changed. That map was useless. 

“We need Clarke,” he said, interrupting. He pointed to the map, “That's useless. The ground has changed. Everything has changed, and Clarke is the only one who knows how to survive in this new world. We need her help.”

Octavia's lips were pressed together so hard they'd lost all color. She was furious, and he couldn't bring himself to care. She could be furious all she wanted—he was still right. 

“How can you forgive her for all she's done?” she asked. Indra crossed her arms behind her, a team in a way he envied. She knew his sister, had her trust in the way he hadn’t for a long time.

“All that she’s done?” He shot the words right back at her. “We’re here, alive, because of all that she’s done.”

“She locked thousands of people out of the bunker. She locked _me_ out of the bunker when I won the Conclave. She nearly shot you, and locked you up. She does what she wants without regards for who gets trampled in her way, she always has. If she wants to come back, she’ll be welcome to contribute as another healer, but not anything else. She doesn’t make the decisions anymore, we do. And I’m not expending the resources on looking for someone who obviously doesn’t want to be found.” Octavia finished her tirade before stomping to the other side of the tent, back to them. 

“We’ve all done things we regret,” he told her. 

She turned back to him, still angry. “Does she, though? I’ve never seen any sign of remorse on her part.”

“Then you’re misremembering. She regrets plenty.”

“And you speak for her now? After six years?”

He shrugged, undaunted. Knowing what he was saying was true regardless of their time spent apart. She’d changed, but not the fundamental core of who she was. That part he still knew. 

“I know Clarke,” he said.

Kane stepped in between them, arms partly out as if to hold them both back. “We do need Clarke. Her knowledge of the ground is invaluable. But Octavia is right. We don't have the resources right now to send out scouts to look for someone who left of her own volition.”

“I never said send out scouts. I'll go,” he told them. “I've been here a month longer than you, I know at least enough to go out and find Clarke.”

Indra rolled her eyes, an expression entirely out of place on the stern, older woman. It was an Octavia expression he knew well. 

His sister just crossed her arms. “You're not going out alone.”

“Fine, I’ll take Miller,” he said. Even after six years, he trusted Miller to have his back. “And Murphy, it’ll get him out of your hair for a while.”

Octavia stared him down, not with the glare of an angry adolescent, but the fierce gaze of a warrior. No longer his little sister, but a leader who knew her own power and how to use it. He was so proud of her. He’d never imagined, seven years go, that the young, bright eyed girl mystified by anything that wasn’t their little apartment on the Ark would flourish on the ground. Pain and loss had sharpened her edges, made her deadly and beautiful with it. 

But he wasn’t going to back down because she was unhappy with him. He didn’t answer to Clarke, and he wasn’t going to answer to Octavia either. This was too important. They—he—couldn’t just let Clarke go. Not after everything they’d been through. 

“You’re going to go regardless of what I say, aren’t you?” she said.

He nodded. 

“Don't tell Abby,” she said, after a moment. “Not unless you bring Clarke back. Otherwise it'll just be one more disappointment she doesn't deserve.”

“Abby didn't notice her own daughter was gone for five days. I'd say there's a lot Abby doesn't deserve,” he couldn't help saying, though he knew it was antagonizing. He'd gotten so much better over the past six years at controlling his temper, thinking before speaking. But it was hard to remember who he was, surrounded by relics of who he'd been. Octavia had always been able to rile him up like no other. 

Well, maybe like one other. 

His sister rolled her eyes and turned away again. “Go, then.”

It took effort not to shout at her. He didn't want to, not after he'd missed her for so long, worried about her. Not when they were just starting out on new footing, putting the past hurts behind them. Trying to, anyway. 

“I'll check back in a few days, regardless. She can’t have gone far—there isn’t far to go before you reach deadlands,” he told her, hoping she’d listen and get over her anger. Resenting Clarke after all this time—Octavia may no longer be a teenager, but she was still a brat. It was hard for him to stay angry with her, though. Not when he was still so glad to see her, alive and healthy. She didn't have to care about Clarke. He cared enough for both of them. 

“I’ll see you when I get back,” he said to her back. He nodded to Indra, just to keep as close to her good side as possible (if she had a good side), and turned to Kane. “We’ll forage and hunt for what we need. We’ve been doing it for a month anyway. We’ll take one of the radios so you can call us back if you need us.”

Kane nodded. “Keep us updated on your progress. I’ll keep it from Abby for now.”

Bellamy turned to leave when Kane grabbed his arm, pulling him just enough for them to meet each other’s gaze. In a quiet voice, not quite private but enough so for people used to living in limited space with far too many others, he said, “I get why you’re doing this, Bellamy. I hope you find her. I know you loved her, but don’t mistake the woman she is now for the girl she was. I don’t pretend to know what motivates you now, other than care for the girl we all knew, but I don’t want to see you disappointed. It’s going to take time for us all to adapt to each other again.”

Tugging his arm out of the older man’s grasp, Bellamy threw a look at Octavia and Indra, then back to Kane. “Seems to me like you’re all plenty adapted to each other.”

He left before he could get a response. He didn’t want one. It was unfair to throw their comfort and ease with each other in their faces just because he still struggled to figure out who his sister had become, feeling like a stranger with his own blood. But being on the ground set him on edge, and knowing he’d lost Clarke, again, without even realizing it—he was angry. Angry like he’d not been in a long time, at himself, at every goddamn person around him no matter how unfair that was. Angry at the planet that kept trying to kill them. He wanted to lash out, but knew better. His anger had never gotten him anywhere in the past. (When you’re angry, people die.)

That anyone held Clarke more responsible than him for the all the bad things that had been done was infuriating. None of them had the right to judge her, none of them were without crimes in this mess. Kane, with his culling. Indra and her blood lust. Even Octavia had blood on her hands. 

Nearly everyday on the Ark, he’d reflected on their time on Earth. Hindsight had a way of putting things in perspective, and it’d been a way to remember that any of it had happened at all; he’d felt rain, and wind, and mud, and the sun on his skin. It had been real. In space, all that grew distant.

It’d taken him years to mourn Clarke. Alternating between grief, anger, guilt, denial, fighting off the absurd hope that she’d survived—he’d spent a lot of time with her ghost. With the memory of her. The realization had hit him at some point that she’d only been eighteen. Seventeen, when it started. She’d shouldered a burden people twice her age had refused or had failed to manage. Skaikru, even the grounders to a certain extent, had looked to her for direction, then hated her when that direction wasn’t what they wanted. When she didn't have the answers anymore than anyone else. 

Since the very beginning, even when they’d hated each other, he’d trusted her loyalty to the wellbeing of their people. When she killed Atom, she’d proved to him she was willing and able to do what was necessary to survive. He couldn’t honestly say any of them would be alive now if she hadn’t been who she was, and made the choices she had. 

She’d saved them all, and they’d let her fade away as if she’d never been there at all. 

———

“I'm going to get Clarke,” he said, coming up behind the table his friends had commandeered for the first meal of the day. Couldn't really call it breakfast as there were only two meals a day, and it fell somewhere between breakfast and lunch. “Murphy, Miller? I want you with me.”

They paused, mid-bite, mid-chew, mid-word, and exchanged glances. He knew what they were thinking, and they weren't wrong. It was no secret he'd loved Clarke six years ago. He didn't know when it had started—somewhere between watching her kill Atom when he couldn't and pulling that lever in Mount Weather, his hand over hers. There was very little he wouldn't do for her, even when he’d hated her for leaving. 

He'd thought her dead for six years and mourned. Moved on because there wasn't a choice—the dead don't come back no matter how much you scream and cry and beg. But she had. He might not know what he felt now—everything was a jumble, tossed about and he still wasn't sure he wouldn't wake up back on the Ark, Clarke dead and gone, Octavia out of reach—but there was relief, and joy. 

Letting her go didn't mean he'd stopped loving her. Whether or not it was romantic, whether or not anything would come of it, he loved her. The core of her he'd known, the pieces of her he saw still, the glimpses he saw of who she'd become. She was Clarke, and so much of who he was was bound up in who he'd been with her. She helped make him the man he was. 

His friends were afraid he'd get his heart broken, chasing after her one more time. But he wasn't afraid of that; his heart had been broken and put back together so many times since the day he got his sister discovered, he knew he'd survive it again. He'd even survive losing Clarke again. A broken heart might feel like it will kill you, and you might want it to, but he'd learned the hard way it doesn't. Parts of you go on even when the rest gets left behind. 

Losing her again, now, would be a wound that never healed. Self-inflicted. It’d mean he’d given up on her, and that was something he refused to do. As long as he was around, there would always be a place for her, even if he had to carved it out by hand. 

Murphy took a gulp of his water from a poorly welded metal cup, then slammed it on the table. “Fine. When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible. Pack what you can, and meet me by the far end of the campsite, by the woods,” he told them. Reaching over their heads, he grabbed a piece of what passed for bread around here and shoved it in his mouth.

Raven cleared her throat. “Bellamy,” she began. 

Mouth full, he cut her off. “No.” After chewing and swallowing, he continued, “Raven, don’t. She sacrificed herself to save us, not knowing the night blood would work. Even if I didn’t give a damn about her, which is far from being the case, we’d owe her that much. She deserves to feel welcome here, among her own people, and she didn’t. That’s why she left. Because we forgot she was there.”

“How do you know that?” Raven asked, voice quiet. It was the voice she used to accuse without accusing.

“She left me a note,” he said. There was no reason to lie, though the contents were private, and he wasn’t sharing. “I just found it last night. She and Madi left because she felt like she didn’t belong, that we didn’t need her anymore.”

“That’s unfair to the child,” Echo said. She rarely spoke in matters relating to Skaikru, but Madi was born grounder. She’d taken a liking to the girl. “She deserves to know her people, and to live among people other than the _Wanheda_.”

“She’s not the _Wanheda_ ,” he said. He hated that word. Echo was part of his team now, and he’d learned to trust her on the Ark, but for all he knew her, he still wasn’t sure he could trust her back on the ground. Her loyalties had always been well-hidden, and that, at least, hadn’t changed. But the fact that they’d fucked on and off over the years, for companionship and release more than anything, didn’t mean he’d take her side over Clarke’s. Or allow her to perpetuate this image of Clarke as a deadly symbol instead of a woman. As if Echo had any room to condemn someone for violence or betrayal.

“Her name is Clarke, and she loves Madi,” he said. “You don’t get to make assumptions about a situation you know nothing about.” 

She inclined her head, her version of ceding the argument. It didn’t mean he won by any means, but she’d let it drop for the moment.

“Alright, man,” Miller said, rising to his feet. “We’ll be ready ASAP. Clarke’s saved our asses plenty. The least we can do is find her and let her know.”

“This feels familiar,” Monty said. “Don’t get stabbed.”

Bellamy smirked. “No promises.”

“We're back on the ground, now,” Murphy said, swinging his legs out as he stood. “Anything can happen now. Literally. Anything.” With that he saluted, then turned and left, Miller on his heels. 

“I just don't want you to get your hopes up,” Raven continued. “Clarke’s been distant since we found her.”

“You've been distant too,” Emori told them. “I know isolation. You used to look to her, wait for her input, and now you forget she's there when you discuss plans or give orders. If she felt like you don’t need her anymore, it’s probably because you don’t. You haven’t needed her since we encountered her again.”

He wanted to say that wasn't true, but he knew better. He wanted to protest that of course he needed her (she keeps me centered) but he'd survived without her, and it couldn't be true. But you don't have to need someone to want them. 

Raven shot him a glance, and it reminded him all over again of what he and Clarke no longer had. Raven had become the one who shared his burden of leadership, who'd helped him figure out how to keep the seven of them alive. She'd been the one person to see him cry in those years on the Ark, when he'd mourned Clarke and missed Octavia, and lost hope of ever again reaching the ground. 

But it had been Clarke’s advice to use his head, not his heart, that had pushed him through it all. Her reminder and her memory that had led him Even dead and gone, he realized, she’d kept him centered. Maybe he would always need her.

“That was my mistake,” he said to Emori. “Our mistake. We do need her, we’ve just learned to do without. But she knows this ground now better than all of us. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to convince her to come back. And even if she doesn’t—“ he turned to Raven before she could open her mouth, “—there are things I need to say to her before I can just let her go.”

Raven shook her head, dark eyes falling closed. “You’ll never just let her go, Bell. Not now that you know she’s alive.”

“Good luck, Bellamy,” Harper said, speaking up for the first time and interrupting whatever he’d been about to say in response. She’d been quiet since they got to Earth, struggling more than the rest of them with being back among the things and people they’d left behind. She and Monty had broken up sometime in the intervening years—Bellamy couldn’t remember exactly when, there’d been a lot of drama for awhile—but they’d remained close. Monty bumped shoulders with her in support when she managed a smile to go with her words.

“Thanks, Harper,” he said. “And yeah, Raven, probably not. I’ve never been particularly good at letting things go.”

Echo barked a laugh, and the others smiled, even Raven. They could appreciate the understatement, and he took a simple pleasure in seeing their humor, their good spirits, even if it was at his own expense. 

“Go, Blake, you’re wasting time,” Raven said, tossing a piece of bread at him (although it really was an insult to bread to call it that. It wasn’t much better than algae, and that was saying something. He'd gag if he ever saw that stuff again). He caught it before it hit his chest and popped it in his mouth.

With a grin, he bowed and left them to their meal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think Bellamy would stop caring for Clarke, period. I'm not sure he'd still love her the same way, especially if we get any kind of Bell/Raven relationship, but here I'm being optimistic. I honestly don't believe he'd ever have a serious relationship with Echo, seeing as she was pretty directly involved in Gina's death (and a lot of other betrayals, not limited to trying to kill his sister). He might forgive her enough for friendship, but not love like that I don't think. Also taking into account Bellamy's pretty pronounced distrust of grounders. 
> 
> That's part of what was so frustrating at the end of season 4 with the bunker. It's like Clarke and Bellamy reversed perspectives on the grounders. Bellamy has never trusted them, hated them for a long time, and I'm pretty sure some part resented them for taking his sister away. I saw nothing that would indicate such a radical change on his part where he'd want to turn over his own people's lives for grounders. I believe he'd open that door for Octavia, but not for being fair to the grounders. And that's without me going on about Clarke's character being massacred for the sack of story telling. It happens too often in television where a character does things that don't fit at all with who they are but the writers need them to do so for the plot, and character development or consistency gets tossed aside. (Although I have to say, I seem to be one of the few who doesn't condemn Clarke for her choice to steal the bunker. I'm not saying it was a good choice, it was dumb as fuck, but they pretty much only had shitty choices and she made one. Bellamy's choice to save his sister doomed a lot of the sky people, including Clarke if they hadn't come up with the rocket idea as I can't see how the grounders or Octavia would let her or Jaha stay. Why the show just brushed all that aside is beyond me, but ultimately I don't think Bellamy's choice was anymore righteous or selfless than Clarke's—he just wanted to save his sister. Clarke's treatment of Bellamy was wrong, however, wrong and stupid). 
> 
> So this is what I think could happen based on who these characters were for season 1 & 2, and even 3 and early 4 to à certain extent. But who knows what the writers will do? I get the impression they're trying very hard to hold off Bellarke, if not entirely then at least til the last moment possible. So I'm awaiting some Bell/Raven/Echo/someone to have happened/be happening. 
> 
> Yeah, I do long notes.


	3. my words like silent raindrops fell

**my words like silent raindrops fell**

The miners welcomed them, if not with open arms, then at least with an appreciation for how she could help. She was useful, here, and they knew it. They included her in talks, listened when she spoke, and sought her out for ideas. There were no unspoken tensions, or conversations long overdue.

She and Madi still slept in the rover, parked just inside the miners’ makeshift walls. They’d stripped their rocket for the materials, and though the walls were rudimentary, they were sturdy. Much like the delinquents, they hadn’t moved from their initial landing site, setting up a camp around their ship.

There were just over two thousand people who’d come down, ex-prisoners and the guards they’d been sent off with, all come together to survive. A hierarchy had formed, of course, with the former guards at the top. Clarke could sense a tension between the groups, but not anything resembling a potential revolt. Not yet, anyway. She fervently hoped it wasn’t a weakness she’d need to exploit later on.

Despite that, the exposure to people was good for Madi. Probably good for her, too, though that was harder to admit. How far she’d come, to need practice just carrying on conversations without losing the thread. It was nice, too, to speak with people about harmless things, without the shadow of the past hanging over everything. They were getting to know her as she got to know herself, who she was apart from simply a mother to Madi. 

There was even a guard, one of the leaders, who’d taken notice of her in particular. Paid her extra attention. Brenner was handsome, and she was tired of being lonely. It’d only been a week since she’d joined their camp, and they’d only flirted, but it was fun. She was awkward and out of practice, tentative in a way she hated. When he flung an arm around her shoulder or brushed his hands with hers, she still flinched and tensed up, but she forced herself to relax into it. To tell herself: this is normal. This is what people do.

And, god, she missed sex so badly she could scream. It wasn't just the need for a release that didn't come from her own fingers; it was the intimacy of being with someone, of touching and being touched. Her partner didn't have to be someone she loved—she'd settle for someone she could tolerate at this point. Love had never been a prerequisite anyway. 

She wasn't looking for anything long-term; no commitment, no relationship, certainly not love. (She'd lost everyone she loved—everyone but Madi. She was tired of losing people.) But it was nice. Every time Brenner returned for more, undaunted by her stilted response, her confidence grew. One day, she might even take the risk of loving someone again, even if the thought terrified her. That's what they were trying to do now, after all. Have a life. Now that they'd survived the impossible and peace looked like a real possibility. One day, she might have that too. 

But she missed her people. Bellamy. Her mother. Raven and Monty and Miller and Harper and even Kane and Octavia. She'd missed them for years, the ache a familiar companion. It'd been even harder, though, to miss them when they were right there. Within sight but out of reach. Here it was familiar to miss people who weren't around. They could stay a memory of a time when she knew them; she wasn't faced with the stark reality of how everything had changed. 

She'd known moving on would be painful and slow, but it was years late. Shouldn't it have been easier? 

Nothing on the ground was easy. 

She took Brenner to bed twelve days after she arrived. It was good; he knew what he was doing and it’d been so long. She felt a little bit like the girl she'd left behind in the flames of Praimfaya. Progress, however slow.

But it was only too easy to close her eyes and see another’s face. 

Bellamy would always be the could-have-been she regretted most. If she'd been a little less stubborn. A little less afraid. Back then she'd been so focused on those she'd lost, she'd forgotten to appreciate the ones who remained. And then she’d lost them too. She’d waited so long to see him again, to have him back and maybe—

In her head, logically, she’d known he’d change. Six years was a long time. He was 29 now, a man in a way he hadn’t been before. He was her best friend, her partner—but she was no longer his. Their single year side-by-side meant little in the face of six years, separated. 

She had to get over it. Find some other structure to her life, with Madi at its center. She was no longer anyone’s leader—maybe she wouldn’t need to lean on someone else at all. Maybe she could bear her burdens alone. 

It was a nice thought, but lonely. 

“You need to learn to get out of your own head, Clarke,” Brenner said, sliding into the seat next to her. He poked her in the side with a grin, and she realized she’d been staring into the distance. Shaking her head to break the fog of ache and sorrow she couldn’t seem to escape for long, she gave him her best attempt at a smile and shrugged.

“Old habits,” she said.

“You’ll get used to it,” Madi chimed in, picking at the food on her plate. “Clarke’s always thinking too hard.”

They were in the mess hall, having the evening meal of mashed root vegetables and artificial protein. Clarke was hoping she could convince the miners to share that particular technology with Wonkru at some point, though her negotiations on that point were slow. The ability to grow their own meat substitute would prevent over-hunting, and diminish one of the greatest tensions in how to survive with a severely underpopulated wildlife, but it was a precious knowledge, and the miners preferred to keep it to themselves. Just in case.

“Anything you wanna talk about?” Brenner asked, a shade of seriousness on his usually grinning face. He’d told her being back on Earth was a dream come true, and no matter the challenges, just feeling the sun on his face, the wind against his skin, the scent of trees and forest—they made everything worth it. It was hard to bring him down from that, even months after landing. She tried to remember feeling like that, but it was so long ago. Back at the Dropship, before the Ark came down. Before the Grounders. She’d had maybe a day of pure wonder before everything went to shit.

She shrugged. “Still just getting used to all this.”

“It’s weird having people around all the time,” Madi said, unashamed about it in a way Clarke couldn’t bring herself to be. It felt like a failure to not fit in. But Madi was honest, sometimes to a fault, and she’d grown up in isolation. Being around people wasn’t something that _should_ be natural to her even if, in a just world, it would be.

Brenner looked over to her. “I can imagine. Well, actually I can’t, but I’m sure its a tough transition. You’ll get the hang of it though. People aren’t so bad once you get to know them,” he finished with a smile for Clarke. 

It was strange getting to know someone new. Not necessarily bad, but strange. 

“Hey grounder-girl,” she heard a voice call, the nickname many of the miners had picked up for her. When she turned to look, one of the leaders of the newly formed hunting and gathering groups came up to their table. She was a tall, dark-skinned, dark-haired woman named Aleks, and one of the few ex-prisoners to have made it to the leading ranks. “We’ve got some nuts, mushrooms, and fruit we haven’t been able to identify. Think you can lend us a hand?”

“Sure,” she said, offering a smile. Sliding off the bench, she circled the table to drop a kiss on Madi’s head. “Keep out of trouble,” she told her. Madi grinned in response and shoved her away. 

“I _am_ trouble!” Madi shouted, grinning. Brenner sent her a wink from his spot adjacent the young girl, and Clarke felt something like happiness unfurl in her chest. 

Madi was growing up, gaining back the confidence she'd lost when the ships came down and their isolated world was invaded by strangers. Clarke had a tentative friendship beginning—not trust, not yet, but building—and work to keep her busy. There would always be pieces of her missing, but maybe that didn't have to be the be all and end all of her existence. 

Progress. 

She shook her head and smiled back at them, then turned and followed Aleks back to work. 

That night, Clarke and Madi laid together in their pallet in the rover, looking at the stars out the window. Madi recited the constellations Clarke had been able to recall and tell her about over the years, then started making-up her own. The girl had always thought the old constellations were ridiculous, and since Clarke couldn’t remember enough to explain why and how they came about, Madi had created an entire anthology of stories and images she saw in the sky. One of their few possessions was an old journal Clarke had found in Becca’s mansion; she’d filled it with images Madi described for her, people and places out of the girl’s imagination, scenes from the stories she’d tell. 

In the year before she’d found Madi, Clarke had filled another journal—a book, really, whose words had all long faded—with pictures of people she’d lost: her mother, her father, Wells, Bellamy, Raven, Octavia, Lincoln, and far too many more. She'd drawn all the places she'd been because after awhile it was hard to remember what was real and what wasn't. It was a record for her to look back on when she forgot or things grew hazy. 

It took her nearly two years to finally show Madi. For a while, the girl had been resentful, distrusting, and they'd been focused on surviving those first, bleak years before life began to re-appear. It'd been a nightly refuge, a glimpse of the past and a hope for the future. 

She'd told Madi stories of her people, who they were and where they'd come from. What had happened when they reached the ground. But the book had been hers, until one day she'd woken up beside Madi and realized, if given the possibility, she wouldn't go back and make it to the rocket in time. Not if it meant leaving this precious, stubborn girl to die alone. Madi was as tough as they came, a survivor like Clarke, but she wouldn't have made it six years on her own. 

They’d shared the journal from thereafter. A future they could both hold on to. The faces inside became familiar figures to Madi, stories and personalities that fed the girl’s own imagination and informed her creations. And so the second tome was born. 

Both books were treasured, kept bound in a protective, weather-proof bag she'd scavenged from Arkadia, and shoved under the driver’s seat of the rover. They'd run out of pages for Madi’s book shortly before the first mining ship came down, and Clarke was debating what the price would be if she asked someone for paper. There was so much more to capture as Madi grew.

“You're not listening,” Madi complained, poking a finger in Clarke’s side. There was a definite pout on her face. 

“I was enjoying the cadence.”

Madi rolled her eyes. “That means you weren't listening to the _story_.”

“Sorry,” Clarke said, shifting on the furs and trying to shake off her thoughts. Focus on the here and now. She wasn't particularly good at that. 

“You're thinking about them again,” Madi said, not quite accusing but closer than Clarke would like. “The 100, Skaikru. Does this mean you want to go back?”

“No,” Clarke told her, mostly honest. “I was actually thinking about your stories, and mine. How we need to keep drawing them even now that there are others out here with us.”

Madi modded, moving up to tuck her head in the nook between Clarke's shoulder and chest. “I liked meeting them. Your friends. They were nice. Not what I expected, but nice.”

“They're good people,” Clarke said, and swallowed past the lump in her throat. She always did get more maudlin before sleep. “We’ll see them again eventually. Wonkru and the miners will have to learn to work together, and we’ll be there helping both. If you want we can go visit when thing settle down some. We can get to know them together.”

The girl nodded, her hair brushing against Clarke’s shirt with the movement. “We can go,” she confirmed, and Clarke bit back a smile, “—but you already know them.”

Clarke shook her head, trying not to feel the pain of the reality she forced herself to face. “Not anymore. I’ll have to get to know them again. We’ve all changed.”

Madi lifted her head from her place on Clarke’s shoulder, and sat up. Her brow furrowed, and she bit her lip as she did when deep in thought. “You were right about them, though. In your stories. Raven’s brilliant, and doesn’t take shit from anyone—“

“Madi,” Clarke cut in with warning glance. She wasn’t particularly good as an example on that front, but she was trying. Cleaning up both their language was a distinctly uphill battle. 

“—doesn’t take crap from anyone,” Madi continued seamlessly. “And Murphy’s kind of a jerk, but loves Emori and hides a squishy center. Monty’s smart and friendly, a bit sad. Harper’s strong, protective of her people. And Bellamy is tough and brave, but mothers everyone. Just like you said. Maybe they haven’t changed as much as you think?”

Clarke shook her head, eyes closing nearly against her will. “It's one thing for their core, their personalities, to remain the same. But they've grown. Formed bonds between them that I no longer know or understand. They needed me before and they don't anymore. There's no space for me there. I—we need to find a place to belong. A place of our own. You need friends that don't see you as a nightblood, but as a girl. And I need friends who don't see in me the past.”

She didn’t know how to make Madi understand what it felt like. To see them as a family and not be part of it. To have hoped for so long, believed for so long that things could be the same, or go back to the way they were when six years had passed. It was foolish, but she'd let herself believe it. 

She didn't want Madi to understand. 

The girl looked down at her hands, twisted in her lap. Again she seemed to turn inward for a moment, eyes narrowed as she considered. 

“I like it here,” she said after a moment. “You smile more.” She looked up at Clarke, “But you're still sad.”

Clarke leaned forward and wrapped her arms around the girl who'd become her daughter. “I know. I'm trying not to be, but it’s—difficult. I miss what used to be. I wouldn't change what happened for the world—I wouldn't have you,” she said, pressing a kiss to her daughter’s hair, “but I miss them.”

“Things will be alright,” Clarke continued. “It just takes time. And you're making friends here, right?”

Madi smiled, “Yeah. They think I'm cool cause I know how to climb trees and shoot.” Quieter, she said, “They're nightbloods too.”

And Clarke knew she’d made the right decision. 

—

Two days later, Clarke was in the strategic planning tent, working on noting important landmarks on a map of the miner’s agreed upon territory. Many of the hunting and scavenging teams had gotten lost, unused to life on the ground and living with the possibility of spreading out. They'd asked her for more guidance on that front.

An alarm rang out, and Aleks, standing beside her, answered her unasked question.

“It means there are strangers at the gate,” she said. The woman eyed Clarke with no little suspicion. “Your people?”

“I don’t know,” Clarke answered, chin up in defiance. She’d given them no reason to be suspicious, and she wouldn’t act like she had.

Aleks nodded, lips pursed. She turned to go outside and motioned Clarke to follow. Curiosity drove her forward, trepidation bubbling up in her chest. Strangers had never led to anything good in her experience, and if it was someone from Wonkru, who was it and why would they have come? For her? Or for something else, and she couldn’t decide which was worse. If they hadn’t come for her—

She recognized the dark curls and bronzed skin beyond the gate like a punch to the gut. He had his hands in the air, a gun slung across his back but out of immediate react, and he didn’t look happy about it. But he stood, surrounded by Murphy and Miller, all three waiting as the guards opened the gates and demanded their weapons, searching them once the obvious guns were handed over.

His gaze found hers through the thick metal wire of the main gate. She couldn’t read him. Couldn’t see what he was after, if he had a plan. All things she would’ve known at a glance, before.

The distance between them broke her heart all over again, and it was this pain she’d left to avoid.

Why had he followed her here when there was no need for her anymore? He had others to lean on, no need of her co-leadership when he'd grown into the man he always could have been. She was a piece of the past best left behind. 

She resisted the self-pity that came with the thought, though some slipped through anyway. She refused to be naive this time; hope had bitten her in the ass too many times. 

She felt someone come up beside her, and glanced over to see Brenner, hands braced on his hips and gaze following hers to the gate and the men walking inside. 

“I guess they're here for you,” he said, not breaking his stare toward the newcomers. 

“I think so,” she answered. 

He flicked his gaze over to her then back. “Seems like there's history there. That guy in the front hasn't stopped looking at you.” 

She didn’t have a response to that so she just shrugged, crossing her arms over her chest and hoping she didn't look as vulnerable as she felt. Like a carefully stitched-up wound ripped open. At risk of infection.

To know he'd followed her here caused a ridiculous burst of hope she quickly squashed. She of all people knew how powerful a motivator guilt could be.

Brenner turned to face her fully. His face was sympathetic, curious, not bearing the suspicion she might have expected. “You’ve never said why you left them behind.”

Her mind went blank, and she stared at him for a long moment. She hadn't ever answered that question, just showed up offering her advice and expertise. And yet despite all the thinking and agonizing over leaving, she still didn't have a good answer for that. Not one he could understand. 

“I needed a fresh start,” she said finally, the best words she could find to describe the tumult inside. Maybe someday she’d be comfortable enough with him to shared the details, the history that had separated her from her own people, but somehow she doubted it. It was hard to imagine opening up to Brenner. Then again, she’d once thought that about Bellamy. Long ago, before she’d gotten to know or understand him. 

The memory of Bellamy from those first few days on Earth brought a small smile to her face, and gave her the courage to meet Bellamy’s gaze again across the distance between them. He didn’t smile back but the stern glare he bore softened, and she got a glimpse of a younger Bellamy, pleading with her to come home. 

She wanted to speak to him. Find out he was still the same Bellamy under this new stranger. He had been the rock she'd held onto during those six years, a bridge between the past and the future. Though she'd refused to see it at the time, she'd loved him for so long, since before she left after Mt Weather. Trusted him in a way she'd never been able to trust Lexa. She'd known before Allie that she loved him. It had been fear, and a stubborn refusal to give in again only to lose someone else she loved, that had held her back. And she would regret it everyday for the rest of her life. 

Maybe if she told him, she'd find a measure of closure. It would be excruciating. He'd look at her with pity and guilt, but she could survive it; she'd survived worse. 

She needed him more than he needed her, and it was unbearable. 

The smile had faded from her lips, and Bellamy cocked his head at the site, brows lightly furrowed. 

“Let’s go great our guests,” Brenner said, studying her face. “I’m sure they'll want to talk to you.”

She nodded, and followed him down the incline to the gate. 

“Welcome,” Brenner called as they reached hearing distance. “What brings you to our humble camp?” he asked, arms outstretched in a sign of welcome.

“We're here to talk to Clarke,” Bellamy said. He kept his voice level and calm, expression unreadable. 

“Of course,” Brenner said. “She and Madi have been of great help to us. I'm sure you've missed her expertise since she joined us.”

Bellamy's jaw clenched, but he contained himself to a single, terse nod. Behind him, Murphy raised a hand to stroke his beard, hiding his smirk. 

If Brenner was trying to land a blow, he'd succeeded. Clarke couldn't decide if that irritated her or not. She didn't need this to turn into a male pissing contest. 

Ignoring the miners around him, Bellamy focused in on Clarke, then took a hesitant step forward. Whatever he saw on her face—-and she honestly had no idea what it might be—must've been enough because he shot toward her and scooped her up in his arms. They closed tight and solid around her, one hand gripping her jacket, the other her shoulder. He pressed her against his chest, tucking his face into her hair like they’d done so few times before. This was the reunion she'd imagined. Reclaiming that safety, that feeling of easing her burdens in his embrace. Sharing comfort and mutual understanding. Forgiveness. 

“Don't do that,” he whispered in her ear, the words so low it was more rumble than sound. “Don't just disappear.”

She closed her eyes, burying her face in his neck. “I had to get away. Madi and I both.” How could she explain it hurt too much to see them and not belong? Without causing him more pain. 

Pulling back, she swallowed several times and hoped it didn't show how close she was to tears. With a nod of greeting to Murphy and Miller, she took another step back and motioned for them to follow. 

“We can talk in private,” she said. 

Murphy snorted and crossed his arms. “Right,” he said. “You and Bellamy go on ahead. Have your talk.”

“We’ll catch up,” Miller added, smiling at her with a kindness she didn't expect and probably didn't deserve. 

“Lead the way,” Bellamy said, gesturing forward with a tense attempt at a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's not been beta-read, but I wanted to get something out to let you guys know I'm still working on this and sort of have an idea where it's going. Chapter 4 is already underway, and 5 is at least started. Next up is the big Bellarke talk, and it will be painful so brace yourselves. 
> 
> I'm still struggling to believe they will actually realistically get together anytime in the series. Not gonna keep ranting about it though. But I will continue this, though timeline is loose, as I'm focusing more on my original writing. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for your encouragement and your reviews and kudos. I appreciate each and every one.


End file.
